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Archive for August 2nd, 2017

The complete text of the First Amendment to the US Constitution is as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But Floyd Abrams focuses his little book on the second part only–“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” This, to Abrams, is the “soul” of the amendment.

Reading the book definitely helped me to understand what the first amendment does and does not do. It concerns what the government, specifically the Congress, can and cannot do. It does not prevent private companies or citizens from repressing speech.

Abrams gives the reader some history–which framer advocated for what, and why. Some of them did not think it was necessary to explicitly prevent the government from infringing on free speech. Others disagreed. In the end, the reference to free speech and a free press were included; they might just as easily have been left out, and we would be a different country today. Yet for the first couple of hundred years of the republic, nobody paid much attention to the amendment, and freedom of expression was routinely curtailed and censored. It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that case law began to develop based on the rights set down in this amendment. I had no idea that that was so, and I think probably few people do. (N.B., The history part was pretty dense and tough going for me; it isn’t written in legalese, but it’s challenging.)

Then there is a lengthy comparison of how freedom of expression and a free press are viewed by Americans and according to American law, as opposed to how they are viewed in Europe and in other democratic societies (very different). In other societies, other rights may take precedence over free speech, such as Europe’s right to be forgotten, which allows people to request that articles written about them be suppressed if they are no longer relevant, whatever that means, and the control over hate speech. It’s instructive to consider what happens when two or more essential human rights are in conflict with each other.

He nearly lost me in the final chapter, which deals with the infamous Citizens United decision, the one that opened the door to treating corporations as people who have the right to express themselves politically by donating enormous sums of money to political causes and candidates. Liberals such as I am have a kind of knee-jerk negative reaction to this Supreme Court decision, but Abrams argues the case that prevailed (he was actually one of the attorneys who argued it before the Supreme Court), and I admit that at times he was very convincing. It’s useful to consider the arguments on both sides.

For some reason, I love reading first-person accounts of very long walks (very long bike rides appeal, too)–perhaps because I will never do one of these marathon walks (across the US, across France, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska…). This book fits right into this genre. Andrew Forsthoefel yearned to know how to become a true adult, and so he decided to set out walking from his home in eastern Pennsylvania with a sign that said “Walking to Listen”, hoping to meet people who could guide him on his journey to adulthood. He ended up in Los Angeles eleven months later, having understood that maturation is an ongoing thing, not one which we complete in any kind of recognizable way. The various men and women he encountered on his trek shared their stories with him (85 hours’ worth of recorded interviews), and he shares some of them with us. Partial transcripts from some of the interviews are shared between chapters, and other stories and guidance that he received are summarized.

Much of the book is devoted to the author’s experiences, his emotional ups and downs, his fears of the people he was about to meet (in every single case, until he met them and they turned out to be harmless/friendly/helpful/generous, and some of them became real friends), and the very real physical dangers he faced, such as the crossing of Death Valley.

He took three books along with him (Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman; The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran; and Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke). He quotes extensively from them, for they had many important lessons for him in their pages. He must have known these books very intimately after living with them for almost a year. After reading his book, I felt I knew those three books better too.

I enjoyed the book, like others of its genre.

(Excruciatingly created using the touchscreen of my Samsung tablet, while I am on vacation in Greece. I can’t figure out how to tag the post or categorize it; I guess I will have to do those things when I’m back home with my laptop. I’ve read reviews of the WordPress app for tablets and smartphones, and they do not make me want to get it! Perhaps I should mention that I read the book on the tablet too, using my kindle app.)